College Ncata And Stunt

[HPEmom]

USA Cheer announced that STUNT had applied for emerging sport status. I thought that NCATA was doing the same for Acrobatics and Tumbling. Can someone explain the differences, legitimacy etc? There are more schools with STUNT but schools I am more familiar with such as Oregon and Baylor have A&T. I realize that Quinnipiac has A&T as a result of a lawsuit several years ago but there does seem to be a lot of growth in NCATA.

My daughter is a high school senior and has committed to a college to do A&T so I really am curious about these 2 programs that seems to compete directly against each other.

Anyone with insights?

 

[Ems]

USA Cheer announced that STUNT had applied for emerging sport status. I thought that NCATA was doing the same for Acrobatics and Tumbling. Can someone explain the differences, legitimacy etc? There are more schools with STUNT but schools I am more familiar with such as Oregon and Baylor have A&T. I realize that Quinnipiac has A&T as a result of a lawsuit several years ago but there does seem to be a lot of growth in NCATA.

My daughter is a high school senior and has committed to a college to do A&T so I really am curious about these 2 programs that seems to compete directly against each other.

Anyone with insights?

As a former collegiate cheerleader and stunt athlete, I have some thoughts. I’m only going to focus on the college level.

A&T and Stunt definitely are direct competitors. I believe A&T came first and Stunt was Varsity’s answer to it.

Stunt is much more similar to cheerleading in the sense of stunting. There’s traditional 4 person stunt groups and similar pyramids you’d see from your average college cheer team. There are four quarters (partner stunts, pyramids and baskets, jumps and tumbling, and group) and premade routines that each team learns prior from competition varying from easy (routine 1) to hard (routine 6). There are 6 routines EACH for 3 quarters, the stunt, pyramid, and tumbling quarters for a total of 18 routines. The last quarter, the group has to perform all of the routines of that level, side by side next to the other team, at the same time. I’m not going to get too into how Stunt works, that’s all on their website and can be easily watched online.
The point is, you learn the routines varsity tells you to learn. And the skills are similar to traditional competitive cheer, but you have 3 panels and the other team has 3 panels and you’re going at the same time.

In Acro and tumbling, there are 6 rounds: compulsory, partner stunts, pyramids, tosses, tumbling, and group. In compulsory, teams compete the same skills, although one at a time. In the other rounds, teams compete the best skills they can. Similar to a gymnastics meet in the sense they’re scored on difficulty and execution. However, the skills and group routine are a bit different from traditional cheer skills. But one team gets all the mats at a time, scored on difficulty and execution.

Having competed stunt, I’m actually more partial to Acro and Tumbling. It’s very obnoxious have to learn routines as opposed to putting out skills your team is confident in. Plus having both teams go at the same time makes judging difficult. The judges sit relatively close, and if both teams hit, it’s very very subjective to pick a winner.

Plus most STUNT teams are usually the schools cheer team. Schools may list as having separate teams, but there’s definitely A LOT of overlap and almost always the same coaches. (I can’t back this up with rosters, but this was the case when I was competing). So it’s really just like a new way for existing cheerleaders to compete, tbh.

I don’t have experience with A&T, but it seems like it’s more respected and more serious than Stunt. They’re treated like athletes, and not cheerleaders in volleyball uniforms.

However, due to varsity’s influence, I feel Stunt may overtake Acro. I have a lot of feelings and knowledge on this, so if you have more specific questions, feel free to ask because this is a big jumble of information.




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[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

Question. At schools where there is STUNT and CHEER, are you expected to participate in STUNT if you cheer?

Or do they just make STUNT team out of who is interested?

 

[HPEmom]

EMS - Thank you for your comprehensive reply. As you explain it, it does make sense to me. My daughter has committed to do A&T starting in the fall so I am excited to learn about the sport as she moves out of All Star Cheerleading. From our visits to the university, the A&T team is most definitely treated as athletes with trainers at their practices and the team follows the same rules as NCAA Division I regarding in season and off season practice hours, mandatory study hours, etc. Additionally, the school is able to offer substantial athletic scholarships. Hopefully A & T will be able to sustain itself and become a recognized women's college sport providing an option to those who have no interest in traditional spirit or sideline cheer at the college level. If Varsity is able to control and influence STUNT, it will NEVER be recognized as a sport.

 

[ScottyB]

If Varsity is able to control and influence STUNT, it will NEVER be recognized as a sport.

I 100% get why you say this based on all their previous actions. But they literally applied for ncaa status this month for STUNT..

 

[Ems]

Question. At schools where there is STUNT and CHEER, are you expected to participate in STUNT if you cheer?

Or do they just make STUNT team out of who is interested?

I’m not sure how it is at all schools, but at mine, not really. Most of the girls wanted to do STUNT. It was a way to compete if you didn’t make mat or didn’t play the role you wanted if you were on the mat. It was more common to have girls join just for Stunt, like they didn’t want to cheer sideline but wanted to compete. (The main girls who did this had all star/gymnastics backgrounds) But this really only occurred if they were a strong stunter and/or tumbler.


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[AndyT_T]

As a former collegiate cheerleader and stunt athlete, I have some thoughts. I’m only going to focus on the college level.

A&T and Stunt definitely are direct competitors. I believe A&T came first and Stunt was Varsity’s answer to it.

Stunt is much more similar to cheerleading in the sense of stunting. There’s traditional 4 person stunt groups and similar pyramids you’d see from your average college cheer team. There are four quarters (partner stunts, pyramids and baskets, jumps and tumbling, and group) and premade routines that each team learns prior from competition varying from easy (routine 1) to hard (routine 6). There are 6 routines EACH for 3 quarters, the stunt, pyramid, and tumbling quarters for a total of 18 routines. The last quarter, the group has to perform all of the routines of that level, side by side next to the other team, at the same time. I’m not going to get too into how Stunt works, that’s all on their website and can be easily watched online.
The point is, you learn the routines varsity tells you to learn. And the skills are similar to traditional competitive cheer, but you have 3 panels and the other team has 3 panels and you’re going at the same time.

In Acro and tumbling, there are 6 rounds: compulsory, partner stunts, pyramids, tosses, tumbling, and group. In compulsory, teams compete the same skills, although one at a time. In the other rounds, teams compete the best skills they can. Similar to a gymnastics meet in the sense they’re scored on difficulty and execution. However, the skills and group routine are a bit different from traditional cheer skills. But one team gets all the mats at a time, scored on difficulty and execution.

Having competed stunt, I’m actually more partial to Acro and Tumbling. It’s very obnoxious have to learn routines as opposed to putting out skills your team is confident in. Plus having both teams go at the same time makes judging difficult. The judges sit relatively close, and if both teams hit, it’s very very subjective to pick a winner.

Plus most STUNT teams are usually the schools cheer team. Schools may list as having separate teams, but there’s definitely A LOT of overlap and almost always the same coaches. (I can’t back this up with rosters, but this was the case when I was competing). So it’s really just like a new way for existing cheerleaders to compete, tbh.

I don’t have experience with A&T, but it seems like it’s more respected and more serious than Stunt. They’re treated like athletes, and not cheerleaders in volleyball uniforms.

However, due to varsity’s influence, I feel Stunt may overtake Acro. I have a lot of feelings and knowledge on this, so if you have more specific questions, feel free to ask because this is a big jumble of information.




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Commenting to add to the differences: Acrobatic Gymnastics, unlike artistic gymnastics, has no collegiate level for the sport outside of gyms. Before A&T there was no college "acro" team so acrobatic gymnasts often either tried to switch to cheer or retired after high school and they had very few if any scholarship opportunities.

NCATA tried to combine cheer and acrobatic gymnastics into one collegiate sport and that's why some of the skills seem so different. I think NCATA thought that including acrobatic gymnastics (which is a FIG and USAG recognized sport) would help legitimize the sport by getting rid of the baggage cheerleading carries while at the same time giving them two athlete pools to pull from. It worked obviously, since NCATA is now USAG recognized, but it made a sport that is a weird step child of both cheerleading and acro.
I don't have any A&T teams around me so I don't know what the composition of the teams is, but from social media it seems to me that they are primarily made up of cheerleaders. That being said when I coached Acro many girls were excited that they now had a sport they could do in college. But, since the sport is neither cheer nor acro, there is a learning curve for any athlete thats going into it. Acro gymnasts won't have anywhere near the tumbling requirements, but cheerleaders don't usually have good enough handstands to do many of the acro building skills.

STUNT, in contrast, was Varsity's attempt to take cheer and implant it into a sport that could compete with A&T. Because of that there are no acro building skills included.

 

[coachrah]

USA Cheer announced that STUNT had applied for emerging sport status. I thought that NCATA was doing the same for Acrobatics and Tumbling. Can someone explain the differences, legitimacy etc? There are more schools with STUNT but schools I am more familiar with such as Oregon and Baylor have A&T. I realize that Quinnipiac has A&T as a result of a lawsuit several years ago but there does seem to be a lot of growth in NCATA.

My daughter is a high school senior and has committed to a college to do A&T so I really am curious about these 2 programs that seems to compete directly against each other.

Anyone with insights?

Emerging Sports for Women is an NCAA initiative. The goal is to bring a sport under the governance of the NCAA and build it to Championship Status. Both Rugby and Equestrian have been on the program list for several years and were named EMERGING Sports. They have not yet reached 40 teams needed for Championship status but are chipping away and growing. In order to be named an emerging sport several criteria must be met. When an organization submits a proposal to be considered the CWA (committee for women's athletics) votes on the best proposal submitted. Acrobatics and Tumbling has submitted a proposal as has Women's Wrestling and STUNT. If one wishes to see the legitimacy of any of these Organizations, go to the website of the organization eg. National Collegiate Acrobatic and Tumbling, or USA Cheer, or USA Wrestling and you can find the competing schools BUT the key is to go to each University athletic department website and see if the sport is listed under women's sports. Sports that are funded by a university will be under women's sports. Club teams, true club teams that is, will also be listed on the University website. Just because one tweets or puts out tag lines like "fastest growing emerging sport" does not mean they have been accepted as an emerging sport but I will give their publicist a huge round of applause for playing a tangled language game.

 

[Keep_Believing]

Texas tech added a division!

 

[Wendy Trekster]

Thanks all for the info - with NCAA involved in Stunt and USAG in A&T , they will limit a lot of what happens in the All-Star universe, so this might be a very good thing. My cp will definitely be looking for both since she has said she doesn't want to do sideline cheer in college, but loves the stunting and is a very competitive person. Now to see if we can add either to our local HS.

 

[coachrah]

Thanks all for the info - with NCAA involved in Stunt and USAG in A&T , they will limit a lot of what happens in the All-Star universe, so this might be a very good thing. My cp will definitely be looking for both since she has said she doesn't want to do sideline cheer in college, but loves the stunting and is a very competitive person. Now to see if we can add either to our local HS.

The NCAA is not involved with any of the sports mentioned in this thread...not yet.